by Alex Irvine
“I came back, didn’t I?”
“Because there’s an unspoken thing,” he said as he got to his feet.
“There is no unspoken thing,” she said firmly, and dragged him toward the ship.
Drax and Mantis were already climbing on board. Groot waved as they approached. “You could have killed us all!” Drax said when he saw Rocket.
Rocket looked annoyed. “Uhh, ‘thank you, Rocket’?”
“We had it under control,” Drax complained.
“We do not,” Mantis said. “That is only an extension of his true self. He will be back soon.”
Rocket noticed Nebula and glared at her. “What’s she doing here?”
“Whatever I have to do to get a ride home,” she said, returning the glare.
He appealed to Gamora. “She tried to murder me.”
“I saved you, you stupid fox.”
“He’s not a fox,” Gamora said.
“I am Groot,” Groot said.
“I’m not a raboon, either!” Rocket yelled.
Groot corrected him. “I am Groot.”
“Raccoon, whatever.”
Outside, the floor shattered as more tentacles of brilliant blue burst upward from the planet’s core. Ego was back. “How do we kill the Celestial?” Drax asked.
“There’s a center to him,” Peter said. “His brain, his soul, whatever it is. It’s in a protective shell.”
“It’s in the caverns below the surface,” Mantis said.
The tentacles wrapped around Yondu’s ship. He gunned the thrusters and fought them as Peter came into the cockpit and saw him. “Yondu?!”
“Thrusters are out,” Yondu said, by way of greeting.
Peter sat in the other pilot’s seat and popped the cover off the navigation console. He saw wires that had jerked loose in the crash and started stripping them so he could wire them back together. “Guess I should be glad I was a skinny kid. Otherwise you’d have delivered me to this maniac.”
The columns of the great hall cracked and started to shift as Ego’s tentacles pulled the ship down through the floor. “You still think that’s the reason I kept you around?” Yondu couldn’t believe it.
“That’s what you told me,” Peter said.
“Well, once I figured out what happened to them other kids, I wasn’t just gonna hand you over.”
Peter kept working on the wires. “You said you were gonna eat me!”
“That was being funny!”
“Not to me!”
“You people have issues,” Rocket commented.
“Well, of course I have issues,” Peter said. He pointed out the window, where the humanoid energy skeleton of Ego was re-forming. “That’s my freakin’ father!”
Peter got the wires spliced together and the ship’s thrusters roared to life. He took the controls and powered the ship straight ahead.
It plowed through Ego’s spectral form and smashed through a huge circular window out into the open sky. Then it dove down to ground level.
“We should be going up!” Yondu said.
“Can’t,” Peter said. “Ego wants to eradicate the universe as we know it. We have to kill him. Rocket!”
“Got it!” Rocket flipped a switch and dozens of tiny spheres rolled on tracks across the ship’s hull. They arranged themselves into a pattern on its nose and activated. A slashing pattern of lasers drilled through the rocks and earth below them, making a path for the ship as it descended into the planet’s interior. When they got to the caverns, the lasers refocused on tunnels, blasting them open before the ship got there.
“Woo-hoo!” Peter whooped. He couldn’t help himself. If you couldn’t enjoy moments like this, life wasn’t worth living.
“So we’re saving the galaxy again?” Rocket wondered. While he talked, Rocket kept the lasers calibrated and aimed to clear a passage for the ship.
“I guess,” Peter said.
“Awesome. We’re really going to be able to jack up our price if we’re two-time galaxy savers.”
“I seriously can’t believe that’s where your mind goes.”
“It was just a random thought, man, I thought we were friends! Of course I care about the planets and the buildings and all the animals on the planets.”
“And the people,” Peter reminded him.
Rocket shrugged. “Ehhhh.”
“The crabby puppy’s so cute,” Mantis said in a high-pitched voice and with a delighted smile. “He makes me want to die!”
CHAPTER 20
Aboard the Third Quadrant, Kraglin sat listening to music and eating, waiting for his orders from Yondu. Then he looked up when he saw flashes from near the jump point. His eyes bugged out. The flashes were Sovereign ships. A lot of them.
He tried to raise Yondu on the comm, but Yondu didn’t answer.
“So tell me,” Yondu said over the thunderous noise of the lasers destroying rocks, “why’d Ego want you here?” He knew Ego had some lunatic plan, but he had never known all the details.
“He needs my genetic connection to the light to help destroy the universe,” Peter explained, knowing it sounded crazy. “He tried to teach me how to control the power.”
“So could you?”
“A little. I made a ball.”
“A ball?” Yondu sounded disappointed.
“I thought as hard as I could,” Peter protested. “It was all I could come up with.”
“You thought. You think when I make this arrow fly I use my head?”
The ship crashed and scraped through the last narrow passage, tearing away part of its hull. Then it floated into the immense central cavern at the heart of Ego. Thick, curving stalks of stone converged on the essence of Ego himself, a crackling blue sphere protected by a thick wall of ore.
Mantis looked out the window. “There. That’s Ego’s core.”
“That ore is thick, Rocket,” Gamora said.
“I got it covered,” said Rocket. He tapped keys and rocked a joystick around. On the ship’s hull, the laser spheres moved into a tight circular pattern. They fired as one, starting to cut through the protective wall to Ego’s core.
“We must hurry,” Mantis warned. “It will not take Ego long to find us.”
“Keep it steady,” Rocket said.
“If we drill into the center, we kill him,” Peter said.
Molten ore began to drip around the hole formed by the lasers. They were getting through, but they weren’t there yet.
“Cap’n?” Kraglin’s voice came over the comm speaker next to Yondu.
“What is it, Kraglin?”
“Remember that Ayesha chick?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Ummmm…”
Yondu glanced out the side cockpit window. Dozens of Sovereign drones swarmed into the cavern. He shouted and hauled the ship into a fast turn away from the core. The drones peppered the ship with fire. As Yondu evaded them, he turned the ship on its side—and Drax, Mantis, and Gamora tumbled out through the hole torn in the hull.
They landed on one of the stone formations near the core and looked up at the horde of Sovereign ships chasing Yondu’s battered mining vessel.
Inside the ship, Peter was yelling at Rocket. “Why aren’t you firing the lasers?!”
Rocket was already coming up with a new plan. He called as he ran toward the rear, “They blew out the generator! I think I packed a small detonator.” He found a pack and started rummaging through it.
“A detonator’s worthless without explosives,” Nebula pointed out.
Rocket held up a handful of the Anulax batteries. “Well, we got these.”
“Are those things powerful enough to kill Ego?”
“If it is, it’ll cause a chain reaction throughout his entire nervous system.” As he spoke, Rocket was cobbling the batteries and detonator together into a bomb.
“Meaning what?”
“The entire planet will explode. We’ll have to get out of here fast. I rigged a timer.” He and Quill tapped the discs th
at generated their space suits and Quill covered his face with his Star-Lord mask. Then they jumped out of the ship, with Groot on Rocket’s shoulder. They dodged drone fire and skidded to a stop inside the hole the ship’s laser had drilled.
Down on the ground, Mantis trembled as blue light began to shine through new cracks below their feet. “He’s coming.”
“Didn’t you say you could make him sleep?” Drax asked.
“When he wants. He’s too powerful! I can’t!”
“You have to believe in yourself,” Drax said. “Because I believe in you.”
Ego’s face appeared in the nearest wall and flared into a brilliant wave of energy. It spread toward them. Mantis looked down. A crack in the ground near her feet shone bright blue as well. She dropped to one knee and thrust a hand into it. “Sleep!” she screamed over the roar of the energy and the battle above them.
The energy vanished into trailing wisps. Mantis looked up, astonished.
Drax, eyes wide, said, “I never thought she’d be able to do it, as weak and skinny as she appears to be.”
Her antennae were almost too bright to look at. “I don’t know how long I can hold him,” she said, straining with effort and urgency.
Rocket shone a flashlight around. The tunnel ended several meters short of the core. There was a small passage forking away from the end of the bored passage. “The metal’s too thick,” Rocket said. “For the bomb to work, we have to place it on the core. And our fat butts ain’t gonna fit through those teeny-tiny holes.”
Peter had been in this situation before. Once, he’d been the skinny kid sent through holes too small for an adult to get through. “Well…” he said, and looked at Groot, who was staring off into space.
“That’s a terrible idea,” Rocket said.
“Which is the only kind of idea we have left.”
Rocket growled and got to work. Peter readied his guns and jumped back out into the battle. He had to give Rocket some cover before the Sovereign realized what was happening…or before Ego woke up.
Rocket called Groot over.
“All right; first you flick this switch, then this switch. That activates it. Then you push this button, which will give you five minutes to get outta there.” He pointed to another button. “Now, whatever you do, don’t push this button, because that will set off the bomb immediately, and we’ll all be dead. Now repeat back what I just said.”
“I am Groot,” Groot said.
“Uh-huh.”
“I am Groot.”
“That’s right.”
Groot pointed to the detonator button. “I am Groot.”
“No!” Rocket yelled. “No, that’s the button that will kill everyone! Try again.”
Groot looked at the bomb. He went through the first two steps correctly again, then hesitated…and pointed to the detonator button again. “I am Groot,” he said proudly.
“No! That’s exactly what you just said!” Rocket tried to control his temper, but Groot could be maddening. “How is that even possible? Which button is the button you’re supposed to push? Point to it.”
Groot pointed to the detonator button.
“No!” Rocket didn’t know what to do.
Quill appeared in the mouth of the tunnel. “Hey, you’re making him nervous!”
“Shut up and give me some tape. Does anybody have any tape out there? I wanna put some tape over the death button!”
“I don’t have any tape!” Quill called back. “Let me check!” He jetted away, and over the sounds of the battle, Rocket heard him yelling to the rest of the team. Soon he was back. “Nobody has any tape!”
“Not a single person has tape?” Rocket found this hard to believe. “Did you ask Nebula?”
“Yes!”
“Are you sure?”
“I asked Yondu and she was sitting right next to him,” Quill said.
“I knew you were lying!” Rocket shouted.
“You have priceless batteries and an atomic bomb in your bag!” Quill shouted back. “If anyone is going to have tape, it’s you!”
“That’s exactly my point! I have to do everything!”
Quill jetted away again, firing at Sovereign drones. Rocket turned back to Groot, figuring he’d just have to try one more time…but the sapling Groot was gone, and so was the bomb.
Echoing back up the tiny passage that led to Ego’s core, Rocket heard: “I…am…Grooooooot!”
He sighed. “We’re all gonna die.”
CHAPTER 21
Yondu was trying to evade the Sovereign drones, but the drilling ship wasn’t built for quick maneuvering. They were taking a beating. “Thrusters are out again!” he shouted. “We’re done for without that generator!”
Nebula triggered a switch on her cybernetic arm. He saw what she was doing and wondered if it would work.
As Nebula wired herself into the ship, High Priestess Ayesha’s voice echoed from the speakers of every drone. “Guardians,” she announced, “perhaps it will provide you solace that your deaths are not without purpose. They will further the warning to all those tempted to betray us.” Her voice rang through the vast space at the center of Ego’s planet. “Don’t screw with the Sovereign.”
Nebula had herself plugged into the system as a backup generator. “This is gonna hurt,” Yondu warned.
“Promises, promises,” Nebula said, sneering.
Yondu hit a switch and Nebula screamed. Electricity crackled around her as the ship tapped her like a battery. The ship’s lasers came to life, dozens of the tiny spheres spraying laser fire in every direction. Yondu had the targeting software ready, and the lasers annihilated the entire drone fleet, cutting off Ayesha’s voice.
Everything was overloaded. Circuits shorted out and energy feedback reached a critical point.
“We’re gonna blow!” Yondu yelled.
Down on the ground, Gamora cried out Peter’s name as the drilling ship blew apart. Then she saw Nebula falling from the tumbling wreckage and landing safely on the ground. A moment later, Peter and Yondu appeared—Peter hovered using one of Rocket’s aero-rigs, and Yondu dangled from his arrow. “Ha,” Peter said. “You look like Mary Poppins.”
Concerned, Yondu asked, “Is he cool?”
“Yeah, he’s cool,” Peter said.
“I’m Mary Poppins, y’all!” Yondu yelled as they touched down not far from Gamora.
Mantis, still crouched over the vein of Ego’s energy, struggled to keep him from waking up.
A moment later, Rocket touched down next to them. All the Guardians were reunited…except Groot, who they hoped was somewhere near the core with the bomb. It hadn’t gone off and killed them all, so things were still going more or less according to plan.
But that luck didn’t last. Wreckage crashed down around them from the drilling ship and the shattered swarm of Sovereign drones. A piece struck Mantis, knocking her down and dislodging her hand from the vein of Ego’s essence.
“Mantis, look out!” Drax cried, far too late.
The vein brightened, and the brilliance of Ego waking up spread throughout the core. Drax bent over Mantis. “She’s just unconscious,” he said, picking her up.
But now it would not be long before Ego awoke. They were running out of time.
Peter ran over to Rocket, shouting over the tumult. “How long until the bomb goes off?”
“In the unlikely event that Groot doesn’t kill us all, about six minutes.”
“Kraglin!” Yondu shouted into a communicator. “We need the Quadrant for an extraction, T minus five minutes!”
“Aye, Cap’n.”
“Somebody’s gotta be up top when Kraglin arrives,” Peter pointed out. Otherwise he wouldn’t know where the rendezvous was supposed to be. He slapped his space-suit disc onto Drax’s back. “Drax, take Mantis!”
Howling with the pain of the suit harness on his sensitive skin, Drax shot toward the surface. Mantis, still unconscious, dangled from his arms.
And then Ego woke up.
Nobody had noticed Nebula. Seeing Gamora fall, she had plunged into the pit after her, diving into the open space. She caught her sister just before they both crashed to the floor. Nebula caught the rock wall and held both of them. With a scream of effort, she flung Gamora up onto a ledge and crawled up after her.
For a moment, the sisters glared at each other. Then Nebula panted, “Get over it.”
Near the core itself, Ego loomed over Peter. “I know this isn’t what you wanted…but what kind of father would I be to let you make this choice?” He was completely deranged, Peter realized. All he could see was his vision. Peter’s human emotions didn’t matter to Ego. Nothing mattered to Ego but himself.
Yondu whistled his arrow into action. It pierced Ego’s stone face a dozen times, eventually breaking it apart into glowing rubble that crashed down around them. Other animated columns of rock trapped Rocket, but he blew them apart with a double handful of the bombs in his pack.
Ego re-formed. “Soon, Peter, we will be all there is. Just stop.”
Peter fired with both pistols, deflecting the tentacles and the sweeping columns of rock—but he couldn’t hit them all, and in the next moment one of them hit him. He skidded across the ground, coming to rest flat on his back. He lay stunned, his face bloodied, unable to get up.
Below the group, Nebula and Gamora looked up. The surface was a long way off. “We have to get to the extraction point!” Gamora shouted as columns of stone were rising to block access to the surface.
They looked at each other, realizing what they had to do. Together, the sisters sprinted forward and jumped, catching the upper edge of one of the columns. Maybe they could ride it all the way to the surface.